Alys Clare - Land of the Silver Dragon

After a time — I don’t know how long — I became aware that the visions had changed. Now I no longer saw things from my own memory. I knew, without knowing how I knew, that I was seeing into the past …

I saw a long shore, the sea grey and shot with silver where a ray of sun pierced the heavy clouds. Through the mist I saw a ship, its square sail filled with a powerful wind, racing towards land. The ship had a high prow, and the prow terminated in the startling, frightening figurehead of a dragon. Its long neck curved gracefully, its snout ended in a curling swirl that suggested fire and smoke, and its elongated eyes stared out with furious determination. Inside my head someone said, Malice-striker .

The ship was running before the wind, its long, graceful lines appearing to fly over the waves as if the dragon had spread its wings. It was stunningly beautiful, and, at the same time, deeply frightening. Had the ship come for me? Was it headed for this shore, where its fierce crew would disembark and fall on my own village?

No , said the voice in my head, for this is not now, but a window into the past .

I felt an instant of sweet relief.

Then abruptly the ship disappeared into the mist and the vision faded. Coming back to myself, I shook off the trance and struggled to sit up. Staggering slightly, I stood up and made my way back to the end of the island nearest to the shore, gathering up my garments once more and bracing myself to plunge back into the dark water.

I scrambled ashore and set off for the village, telling myself over and over again, It’s over, it’s done, Granny’s safe . It helped, a little.

I was almost back at the track when it happened. I hadn’t seen a soul; my fellow villagers apparently had far more sense than I, and, once the day’s toil was done, had headed for home and shut themselves firmly inside. Smoke rose from many rooftops, and imagining the warmth of the hearth fires was making me feel even colder.

I saw a huge figure: a giant of a man, broad-shouldered, his pale-coloured hair hanging in braids either side of his heavily bearded face. His light eyes seemed to shine in the deepening dusk, as if lit from inside. He stood on the edge of the track, looking up at the village.

He was half-turned away from me, and I did not think he had seen me. I dropped to my knees, then to my belly, wriggling through the tufty grass and the low knolls that dotted the sodden ground of the fen edge. I made my way to the meagre shelter of a clump of scrawny hazel bushes, then lay still. I could feel the water soaking into my clothes, from my neck to my knees, but I ignored its chilly embrace. Better to be wet than visible to that monster of a man …

After a moment, I made myself look up.

He had gone. He was nowhere to be seen.

I shook my head, puzzled, for surely my eyes were playing me false. In the short time that I hadn’t been watching him, it was inconceivable that he’d managed to get out of sight; there was simply no place of concealment he could have reached so quickly.

Had I imagined him, then? Was he a vestige of that strange vision I’d had out on the secret island?

I did not know.

I was shivering, my teeth chattering. I was so cold that I couldn’t feel my feet, and my hands were blue-white and clumsy. If I didn’t get into the warmth soon, I’d make myself ill.

I checked once more, very carefully, to see if the giant had reappeared. There was no sign of him. Then I got to my feet and, stumbling, tripping over my own feet, I hurried home to Edild.

She was alone, sitting cross-legged by the hearth, hands folded in her lap. I wasn’t taken in for a moment by her air of serenity. I could feel her ire crackling and fizzing just beneath the surface.

She looked up at me, raising one eyebrow.

I flopped down beside her, drips from my hair and garments hissing into the fire. ‘I’ve been out to the island to check on Granny,’ I said. There was no point in dissimulating.

She did not speak. Shooting a quick glance at her, I noticed that she had gone very white, and her instant concern for the danger I’d just put myself in touched me. It also made me feel very guilty.

‘I worked out that the giant who’s been searching for whatever he’s after in all our dwellings has turned his attention to trying to find Granny’s grave,’ I hurried on. ‘He seems to know a lot about us, such as where all of us live, and apparently he’s also aware that Granny died only a couple of years ago, since it was only the most recent graves that he disturbed. We know she’s not there, of course, and I suddenly had the most awful fear that maybe he had found that out too.’ I hesitated. ‘I’m sorry I worried you. I just had to go and make sure.’

‘And?’ The single syllable was barely even a whisper.

‘It’s quite clear that nobody’s been on the island for ages,’ I replied. ‘All the graves, Granny’s included, are just as they ought to be.’

I felt my aunt’s relief coming off her in waves.

After a short silence, she said, ‘How can you be sure your rash action didn’t lead this giant straight to the one place we don’t want him to find?’ She quickly corrected herself. ‘I mean, one of the places. We don’t really want him near any of us!’

I wondered at her suddenly light tone. It was unconvincing, and I thought perhaps she was trying to take my mind off the dark threat that seemed to swirl around us.

‘Don’t worry, I was very careful,’ I assured her. I told her briefly how I’d checked for any malicious presence, and detected nothing. ‘But I …’ I was on the point of telling her how I’d thought I’d seen the figure of a huge, bearded man just as I returned to the village, but I decided to keep it to myself. Now that I was back in the warmth and safety of Edild’s house, I was even more convinced that it had been merely some sort of after-image from my strange vision.

My aunt was looking at me oddly. It felt almost as if she was trying to see inside my head. Deliberately I put up a barrier, and after a moment she turned away.

Presently she said, ‘Your father will be here to collect you soon.’

I had quite forgotten my promise to my father that I would sleep under his roof again that night. Getting up and going out into the rain again was the last thing I wanted to do, but a promise is a promise. I stretched out my hands to the flames and waited for his knock on the door.

After a restless night, I got up early and set about helping my mother prepare the first meal for all of us. I had barely slept, and I was grumpily — but silently — asking myself how on earth I’d managed to get a decent night’s rest in the days when I’d lived permanently at home, in the midst of my large family. You can, I suppose, get used to anything. The trouble was that I’d become accustomed to the luxury of peaceful nights, either just with Edild for company or, when living in Cambridge with my teacher, Gurdyman, alone in my little loft.

My mother looked exhausted. My heart went out to her and, putting aside my self-pity, I took the large stone vessel out of her hands and went outside to fetch water.

My father was looking thoughtful as he ate his porridge. I had told the family the previous evening about the disturbed graves and about my hasty (and highly foolhardy, according to my father) dash across the marsh to check on Granny out on the island. I guessed this was what was occupying him and, when at length he spoke, I was proved right.

‘It’s no longer common practice to bury grave goods with the dead,’ he mused. ‘Hasn’t been for many a long year. Not something the Church approves of, telling us as they do that we go to meet our maker mother-naked, just as we entered the world.’